Apologia of Chaos

[JackOfBlades]

This Apologia of Chaos is supposed to counteract views of the Chaos gods both as essentially evil, and as rigidly onedimensional both in their own aspects and how the Chaos gods relate to each other. I want to enable people to think of Chaos both in a fundamentally nuanced way, and even in an alien morally sympathic way as a force of catharsis.

In this first post I have started with Khorne, mainly because he is the Chaos god people would most think of as mindless.  This text is merely one variation of turning to Khorne, and with a cursory consideration, there are other accounts you could write that show different aspects of Khorne :

1) - The honorable warrior who despises dishonor and grows ever more pathological in that sense (whereas my account is not based on someone who is already a warrior) which is the classically nuanced account of Khorne.
2) - The person who despairs at reality but turns to rage instead of acceptance at it (see chapter master Kyras in DoW2 for example)
3) - The soldier, commander, civilian or administrator who grows more and more irritated and enraged at the incompetence or cowardice with which their side or their colleagues are carrying out some military operation. This is close to the account you are about to read from me, but not the same. Simply encouraging the enemy's command & control and regular soldiers to act on these latent or open feelings is also how I imagine Khorne insidiously destroys enemy armies, logistics and fortresses from within, equivalent to how the other Chaos gods would in their own ways.

But this particular account based on sins and "social justice" is the one I chose to write for now, as I feel it's both the most general for how different people would fall and most clearly subverts a perhaps more typical expectation of Khorne as someone that civilians would hardly turn to, when in fact to me civilian life is rich in the path to Khorne. One might even ponder that it could particularly be those who are the most used to a life of "civilized" convenience and vanity that would be more susceptible to Khorne (and not merely to Slaanesh as one would stereotype), as they with their lack of perspective and humility would be more easily angered and frustrated by smaller perceived slights and setbacks.

I plan to write accounts of the 3 other Chaos gods too, including the different aspects they all have in themselves and how the other Chaos gods both overlap and conflict with those aspects. For Khorne I already hinted at different accounts/aspects above. My goals are to make you feel sympathy for the human condition as a prerequisite, and then ultimately to make you see Chaos as protagonistic - that in its twisted alien resolutions to the human condition, it may actually be cathartically benevolent. If only you let Chaos into your mind...


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Khorne

Emotion: Anger (Frustration, Rage, Resentment, Hate)
Notions: Justice, Righteous Disgust & Fury, Respect

It may not be the warrior who creates the Rage, but the Rage that creates the warrior.

Khorne’s faithful can be drawn from the most forward-looking and just-minded of people. Those who seethe at oligarchic privilege, those with a keen ill regard for economic rent seeking, corruption and fraud, those who despise the violently antisocial and petty lowlifes, those who hate the child or animal abuser, rapist, the lying and unfaithful, the human trafficker and domestically violent, even those who are enraged at pollution or social custom – they are at the forefront of who may fall to Khorne.

Khorne sees your Anger, and urges you to set things right and not stop until all the injustice has been righted. The perpetrators know what they are doing and you bitterly know they can only be dealt with through destruction. But there are also those who might claim to feel a sense of right, but do not show the righteousness to act on it. They enable or excuse the presence of evil through their languid comfort, foolish pity, or blind legalism. Do they not have the sense of Justice? They must be swept into your fold, or if they do not feel the conviction you do, swept away as despicable accomplices too.

So begins the life for Justice. And your tendency toward reaction against perceived slights grows too until it is intolerable to abide the common people around. You may already have a negative reaction to the inane humor, witless or wanton disrespect, stupidity, carelessness and hypocrisy that other people display. Perhaps you are even mindful of this in yourself too. What harm is it if creatures like these die? Their natures are an incorrigibly ugly sight. The world is at no loss without them. So the spirit of Khorne gives you the clarity to wipe away the evil sin and the ugly flaw.

But this could not last forever. When at some point the devotee reflects on their pursuit, they might come to consider that some they have killed may not have deserved death. As they face the killer they have become, they realise that the person they are now may serve as an example of what could’ve driven their earlier self down this path in anger in the first place. Now, at last, they feel their most profound sense of insight. For in reduction to the sinful, the flawed and the murderous, who all deserve Justice, the world has become one of limitless potential for it. And each killing of the innocent brings the world closer to this state as well, both physically through their elimination and spiritually through turning the killer into a hypocrite, who now stokes anger in those who were as they once were. And so the enlightenment of Khorne is revealed.

Now, free at last through Khorne, you have the life for a higher cause and eternal paradise of Justice that you always desired. Blood for the Blood God!

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So what do you think? I wrote and edited this text just in the last hour or so, it is meant to be an oversight of Khorne's concept rather than a deep personal story. Did you like it? Any critique of my prose or concepts? Hopefully it gave you something.

Edited September 25, 2020 by JackOfBlades

[Beastmaster]

Very nice!

I could also see the well-meaning anarchist seeking fundamental change get in the fangs of Tzeentch, the nice fun-loving party host being slowly overtaken by Slaanesh, or, perhaps most disturbing, the self-sacrificing caretaker of the sick becoming entangled with Nurgle. Just like in real life, they don’t start as evil. They slowly slide into it until there‘s no turning back.

[Neverchosen]

I have always seen the Chaos gods as transgressive elements of society that are ideologically neutral but perceived as evil. I even think that way about the demons, which are simply manifestations of these concepts (fears/desires) but clearly they are capable of existing alongside humans as they march and fight beside one another. I know it probably isn't lore friendly but I typically perceive of the lore as inspiration for my own narratives. 

Edited September 26, 2020 by Neverchosen

[Ggom]

20 hours ago, Beastmaster said:

Very nice!

I could also see the well-meaning anarchist seeking fundamental change get in the fangs of Tzeentch, the nice fun-loving party host being slowly overtaken by Slaanesh, or, perhaps most disturbing, the self-sacrificing caretaker of the sick becoming entangled with Nurgle. Just like in real life, they don’t start as evil. They slowly slide into it until there‘s no turning back.

I would argue that the word evil has no place here. Evil is a judgment given in the context of another set of values, and has no meaning in the philosophies of these other value paradigms. From a khornate worldview, there is righteousness and strength on one end, and weakness and corruption on the other. Having a third axis of “evil” is absurd - for what is evil other than weakness and corruption? 
 

In a fantasy world, where our practical 21st century morality is irrelevant, why should we view the myriad  other value systems from behind the lens of good and evil (whatever that might mean to the reader?) Free your mind, and embrace the fluidity of meanings and values that is... ... Chaos. Nothing else makes sense. 🤣

[Sttufe]

On 9/25/2020 at 9:52 PM, Ggom said:

I would argue that the word evil has no place here. Evil is a judgment given in the context of another set of values, and has no meaning in the philosophies of these other value paradigms. From a khornate worldview, there is righteousness and strength on one end, and weakness and corruption on the other. Having a third axis of “evil” is absurd - for what is evil other than weakness and corruption? 
 

In a fantasy world, where our practical 21st century morality is irrelevant, why should we view the myriad  other value systems from behind the lens of good and evil (whatever that might mean to the reader?) Free your mind, and embrace the fluidity of meanings and values that is... ... Chaos. Nothing else makes sense. 🤣

At the same time to write a good story, one of the most important things is too connect to the reader and provide a frame of reference of some kind in order to have a more engaging story. It's why thinking about alien life forms or opposing thought processes are difficult, and writing in the style of an alien view can be very difficult. Weakness and corruption could be viewed in and of themselves in a different way, and if we simply abandon 21st century morals we get a story which is of no interest to us. Obviously we can connect to corruption, but what if it isn't corruption? There could be a myriad of different reasons which all contribute or are viewed in the opposite direction. Freedom vs security, many things could contribute besides the relatively narrow 2  ideals. 

[TMS]

Excellent post!

I have my own personal head-canon on the nature of chaos that nuances it a little more. I draw a close parallel to the story of Dark Souls where

 

the god of sunlight was so afraid of the dark that he broke the natural cycle and created an endless day. To build his perfect world all unwanted things were stuffed into the banished darkness until it got so full of hatred that it eventually became the monster he had always feared.

In the same vein I think of chaos as the most natural thing in the Warhammer world, being after all made up of emotions. However, it doesn't work well with rigid societies (it's in the name) and so it was denied, with everything regarding chaos branded as ultimate evil but sooner or later the dam breaks. Now, chaos is angry.

Anyway, I hope you get around to the other gods as well!

Edited September 27, 2020 by TMS